Women’s Empowerment Program (WORTH)

Duration

Donors

Overview

The Women’s Empowerment Program (WORTH) empowers poor Cambodian women through village-based savings groups
- Women's Empowerment Groups - and
non-formal literacy education by helping them to achieve literacy,
produce income and evolve as social leaders.

The program objectives and materials of the
program are built on a series of three detailed research projects that
examined national adult literacy programs, microfinance in Cambodia,
and the origins and vulnerability factors of trafficked women in
Cambodia.

The target beneficiaries of the pilot program are
residents of 5 districts in 3 provinces that were identified as highly susceptible to trafficking.

The WORTH Approach

Pact’s WORTH approach to women’s empowerment is
based upon a highly successful USAID-sponsored program in Nepal that
has reached over 125,000 women. This program combined savings groups
and non-formal literacy education to give women the tools to their own
empowerment. In three years the Nepal WORTH program helped 125,000
women attain literacy, increase savings by
over one million dollars, and improve their net annual income from $1.2 million to over $10 million. The women also participated in over
40,000 grassroots campaigns addressing issues such as human
trafficking, domestic violence, property rights, and women’s
education.

Goals

To increase the self-confidence and
self-determination of poor Cambodian women by revealing to them that
they have the capacity to make positive changes within their lives.
The WORTH program will prevent trafficking of Cambodian women through
economic development, increased levels of education, and women’s
empowerment.

Objectives

Improve the literacy and numeracy skills of more
than 2000 women.

Increase the income of more than 2000 poor
Cambodian women through micro enterprise development.

Empower women to initiate advocacy actions in
their communities regarding domestic violence, trafficking and other
issues of priority as identified by the women.

Achievements
to Date

Women’s Empowerment Groups - In
collaboration with five local NGO partners, WORTH has trained local
women who serve as Empowerment Workers -to liaise with village women
in their local areas and build the capacity of the 20-member Women's
Empowerment Groups.

WORTH resources - Based on the Pact
global WORTH training curricula, two literacy and savings-instruction
modules have been adapted to reflect local Cambodian needs and widely
distributed.

Building Capacity - WORTH has provided a
wide range of skills-based training to its local partners and the
Women’s Empowerment Groups, including facilitation and communication,
management and leadership skills, and accounting/ financial
management.